Silver Wattle (15 page)

When everyone had settled down, the pianist struck a dramatic chord and the curtain parted. Although we had come to see
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
starring Rudolph Valentino, we were enthralled by the short film that preceded it. Although it was a cartoon, I was captivated by Felix the Cat bouncing around the screen chasing Skiddoo the mouse. It was miraculous to me that a picture could move. When Felix and the mouse became pals after taking to a flask of drink, the audience burst into laughter. The curtains closed again.

Green lights flashed up around the pianist and I saw that he had been joined by a violinist, a flautist and a trumpeter who had turned on their music-stand lights. A hush fell over the audience when the musicians began playing a tango and the opening credits for
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
appeared on the screen. I was lost to the hypnotic play of light and shadow of the picture. I had thought a film might be something like a theatre play without dialogue, but it was different. The actors were apparitions, not people, and the way they conveyed their emotions—a lean towards an object to indicate interest, the tilt of the head to express love, the raising of an eyebrow to show surprise—was much closer to ballet than theatre. Their make-up was otherworldly too: ashen face powder, blackened eyes and cupid bow pouts painted on their lips. The anti-war theme of the film stirred me, reminding me of what had happened to Esther’s love and the broken men I had seen in the streets of Prague and Sydney. I was amazed at how the story of two cousins who find themselves on opposite sides in the war could be brought to life so poignantly with moving images interspersed with titles. When Valentino danced his famous tango scene, Klara dug her fingers into my arm, and when the credits appeared and the audience applauded I had to blink a few times to come back to the real world.

After that first night we were hooked. We went to the pictures every Saturday evening and during the week when we could afford it. Sometimes, as a treat, we went to the city cinemas, where the pictures were preceded by vaudeville shows with chorus girls, comedians and singers. We saw everything on the program and I soon realised that my first taste of film had been a production of superb quality. There was plenty of melodrama showing as well and we often found ourselves in fits of laughter at over-gesticulated actions and implausible plots. Klara and I would analyse why these films were so terrible.

‘The intertitles described things we could see for ourselves,’ said Klara. ‘“Oh look, Margaret. The train is about to go off the tracks.”’

‘The best intertitles are the ones that voice the important lines then cut back into the same action shot,’ I agreed.

Often Klara and I giggled because someone in the audience was reading the intertitles out loud, although if the picture was particularly incredulous the entire audience did so in unison to override the boredom.

There were no language barriers in silent pictures and we watched films from around the world, clutching our armrests through the creepy
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
, and weeping over
La Terre
. But the films that captivated us most were Australian. They were realistic and had usually been filmed outdoors. We loved Franklyn Barrett’s
A Girl of the Bush
, not only for its plot but also because the picture was punctuated with footage of horse mustering and sheep shearing.
The Sentimental Bloke
’s portrayal of love among Woolloomooloo’s poor pulled our heartstrings, although the intertitles, based on the poet CJ Dennis’s popular verse, mystified us.

‘
The world ’as got me snouted jist a treat: Crool forchin’s dirty left ’as smote me soul
’, Uncle Ota read out. ‘What on earth does that mean?’

Even Ranjana, with her dictionary-perfect English, could not enlighten us. But the intertitles were not important. The leads, Arthur Tauchert and Lottie Lyell, told the story with their eyes.

The afternoon and evening cinema sessions ran set programs, but in the mornings films were shown on a continuous basis. We could attend the morning sessions when Uncle Ota and Ranjana had afternoon shifts. Women often brought their young children along, so we invited Esther to join us while Thomas slept on Ranjana’s lap. Unless we arrived at exactly ten o’clock, however, it was impossible to time which picture was screening and so we sometimes took our seats halfway through a film and then had to wait until it ran again to pick up the story at the point where we had entered.

To reach the cinema we travelled by tram then walked three blocks. There was a pub on our route that was crowded no matter the time of day. The first time we passed it, the weather was pleasant and the male patrons spilled out the doors onto the street. At first I thought they had gathered for a political meeting, as I had seen in Prague before the war when the Czech nationalists were vying for independence. But it was not politics on these men’s minds; from the shouts I heard through the open windows I realised they were sharing tips for the dog and horse races and drinking themselves blind. When the pub doors opened I caught glimpses of men in serge suits, counters stacked with glasses turned upside down on towels, and barmaids rushing to take orders. At times, the reek of hops, urine and vomit was overpowering and we crossed the street to avoid it.

One Saturday morning a cold rain was falling. It was not enough to saturate our clothes but it was enough to chill our bones. We alighted from the tram and hurried towards the cinema. Ranjana cradled Thomas to her chest and Uncle Ota wrapped his arm around her shoulders. We passed the pub and I heard a burst of voices as the door opened and closed. Two men hurried by. They walked in front of Uncle Ota and Ranjana, who headed our group with Esther, Klara and me behind. The men had made a point of overtaking us but I assumed they must also be hurrying to the cinema. Then one of them, a lanky man with red scratches over his cheeks, turned, forcing us all to stop. The other man, shorter and with a squashed nose, fixed Ranjana with a hostile stare.

‘Black bitch!’ he muttered before turning to Uncle Ota. ‘Can’t you stand a white…’

The blood pounded in my ears. I did not understand the meaning of the words the man used, only that they were obscene. The other man grabbed Ranjana by the hair, forcing her to the ground. Klara and I screamed. Ranjana flung her arms around Thomas, shielding him under her body, anticipating the kick the man shaped up for. But before he could hurt Ranjana, Uncle Ota punched the man in the jaw. The man’s head snapped back and he fell to the ground.

The commotion caught the attention of the pub patrons. Some men ran outside while others gathered at the windows. I thought the men who had come out were going to help us but I was mistaken. The fat man punched Uncle Ota in the ribs and the spectators cheered. ‘Show the bloody foreigner what you’ve got!’

My mind flashed back to a scene I had witnessed in Prague when a Jewish student was set upon by some brutes. The men had kicked and punched the youth until his mouth bled and his face was as blue as a berry while my mother and I had shouted for the police.

There was no one but these thugs around us now. Although Uncle Ota was against violence, he’d had to defend himself in dangerous situations during his travels. Being taller than his attacker, he had the advantage and gave the fat man as good as he got. Then I heard a glass break. The hairs on my neck stood on end. A man held a broken tumbler from the window and one of the men outside took it and passed it along with the aim of getting it to the fat man. I tried to shout a warning but my voice cracked. I rushed towards the fat man. Everything turned to slow motion like a strange dream. A man in the crowd held up the tumbler and stepped towards me. He’s going to cut my throat, I thought. Uncle Ota threw a punch that knocked the fat man out cold and at the same time my foot shot up and delivered a kick to the man with the tumbler’s groin. He collapsed to his knees clutching his crotch. The other men looked shocked that their burly mate had been downed by a woman.

Uncle Ota seized the moment to pick up Ranjana and Thomas, grab Klara’s hand and scream to Esther and me to run.

We made it to an alley before we realised that we were not being pursued. We crouched in a dark corner and caught our breath. A police siren wailed and we heard voices shouting abuse at the officers. Perhaps we should have returned to give our side of the story. But we were terrified. We hurried to the end of the alley then made our way to a tram stop a few streets away. When we were safely on board a tram, Klara dropped her head in her hands. There would be no pictures that day. When the tram passed by the pub on our trip home, the closed sign had been posted in the window. I looked at my shoe and realised I had split the sole when I’d kicked the man.

We never again attended the cinema near the pub. Instead we took the tram further along the line to another suburb. I had been in love with my new country. After the attack my relationship with Australia was uneasy. I was wary of Australians, wondering if they would lash out at me. Ranjana and Uncle Ota no longer walked side by side in public. Uncle Ota marched in front, his eyes scanning the streets for possible trouble. Ranjana, with Thomas in her arms, stayed a discreet distance behind. Anyone looking on would have assumed that they did not know each other.

‘Ranjana and I knew we would face this when we got married,’ Uncle Ota explained to me when I expressed my disgust at the situation. ‘We endure it because we love each other.’

‘If Beaumont Smith’s film about a white man and a Maori girl is so popular, maybe people will accept marriages like yours,’ I said hopefully.

Uncle Ota dispelled the idea. ‘Beaumont Smith’s leading lady isn’t a Maori,’ he said. ‘She’s as white as the Queen Mother. They have smeared blackface over her. That’s why people accept it; it’s not real.’

The attack had shaken my confidence in Australians but I was proud that I had defended myself. Ranjana stopped speaking to me like a child and treated me with respect. But Klara had been badly affected by the incident. She often woke up in the night screaming that she wanted to go home.

‘We are safe from Milosh here,’ I told her.

‘We are not safe,’ she wept. ‘We are not safe anywhere.’

I was at a loss as to how to make her feel secure again.

Klara’s nerves were not helped by the letter we received from Prague. I was sitting in the parlour, watching the street and listening to Klara play a Brahms waltz, when I saw Ranjana walk to the front gate to collect the mail from the postman. He handed her a letter in a brown envelope. She looked at the postmark and ran back inside the house.

‘Ota!’ she called. ‘Adelka! Klarinka! A letter from Prague.’

Klara stopped playing and Uncle Ota rushed into the room with Thomas under his arm. He had been feeding Thomas and had pumpkin stains on his shirt. Ranjana handed Uncle Ota the letter and took Thomas from him. She sat down on the sofa and bounced her son on her lap. Uncle Ota opened the letter and sat down next to Ranjana to read it out to us.

My dear brother,

It has been almost a year since my last correspondence to you and I know you must have been worried by the silence. Please forgive me. Doctor Holub checked with the shipping company that Adela and Klara had arrived safely and were accepted into Australia. I had to content myself with the knowledge that my nieces were out of harm’s way for I now understand what their dear mother meant when she said she was being ‘watched’. Doctor Holub was with me when I informed Milosh that I had sent Adela and Klara to America to be with their aunt and uncle, explaining that I had done so because Doctor Holub had received information that the girls were in danger. Of course, we did not reveal that we knew the source of this danger was Milosh himself but instead hinted at an anonymous kidnapper who was aware that the girls are heiresses to a fortune.

I had expected Milosh to be enraged but instead he thanked us for acting so quickly in regard to the protection of his stepdaughters. This calm response unnerved me. Is it possible he believes that we suspect nothing? Milosh said that he would like to correspond with Adela and Klara, which I assumed was a ploy to find out where they are living. Doctor Holub explained that for the girls’ security he was the only one who was entrusted with their address and correspondence would put them at risk. Milosh became hostile then and refused to sign the allowance at the bank. Now we find ourselves in a stalemate.

Since that meeting, Doctor Holub has found that his mail is being tampered with, while I live with a mysterious man posted daily outside my house. Because of this, Doctor Holub and I are reluctant to contact you and the girls lest we give away your whereabouts. I hope that the money I sent with the girls proves sufficient for their upkeep a while longer.

Please let my nieces know that even when I do not write I think of them with love every day. Each morning I go to the church and light a candle for them. Tell Adela and Klara that Frip sends a lick.

With all my love,
Josephine

Although the thought of Doctor Holub’s mail being tampered with and Aunt Josephine being spied upon were discomforting, at least now we had a reason for the lack of correspondence from Prague. If I could change one thing, however, it would be that Uncle Ota had not read out the letter in front of Klara. She became more nervous than ever, and so fearful for Aunt Josephine’s safety that I awoke one night to find her pacing the bedroom floor.

‘Klara, come back to bed,’ I told her.

She shook her head and continued to walk. ‘I’m praying,’ she answered. ‘I’m praying for us all.’

I had enrolled Klara at the Conservatorium High School for the following year. We had enough funds to cover the musical tuition, but if Klara or I should need anything else, I did not want to have to ask Uncle Ota for the money. I thought about the typing lessons I had taken with Aunt Josephine in Prague. I cared for Thomas in the afternoons, but I wondered if I could find a morning or night job to bring extra money into the household. Before I had a chance to start looking, another opportunity to contribute to the household arose.